Oblivion
You see the see the sharp glint of hunger as stalks his way towards you. The predatory stance of a wolf before he goes in for the kill. The need for blood pushing him, pressuring him from the inside. You know this night brings blood in the plenty. We are the willing prey to be hunted night after night.
He is a man in the desert wasteland of his own immortality, not partaking in his coercing hunger. But tonight he came upon a feast and will devour what he can until his vast appetite is slaked. Every so often he reaches this level of mindless focus on sustenance and we care for what he leaves behind. We are his servants to clean up his messes and look after our own. Pressure pushing, finding the hole in his will to leak out of and make the blood flow free. His dam of determination, letting loose after a rain forest flood. That tiny trickle from that tiny hole, blown to bits by the building force.
He takes your hand with a too seemingly soft tug. You follow, the sacrificial lamb to Hel, the goddess of the dead. No niceties, no mask to hide the brutal beast. He'll drink on your fear and let it spice his hunger. Your panic as this inhuman person lacerates your throat, delicately seasons the food of your blood and pushes him to keep drinking.
The morphine effect of neurotoxins grasps your will and wills you to relax. You lose your tenuous hold on emotions. Fear, want, desire, sanity. Their release is an avalanche you can't out run. It catches you, tosses you, up, down, and side to side. He is Chaos in human form, sucking up all the supplication you offer and extracting more. Waves of want negate the anxiety as he bites harder searching deeper and deeper into you neck for the release he wants. Endorphins and neurotoxins create vines of euphoria to creep and crawl, smothering your body. His stone mask is off showing the true demon, and you spare no attention from the sensations shivering through you.
Reality is a fresh rain sluicing your mind clean of the heady emotions. The more washed off, the more intense the fire edging it's way along your neck. You lay unmoving. No energy. No will. Acclimatizing. Your body feels weightless, yet so heavy. You can't move. All you see is blackness. Dread fills you as your eyelids are steel blinds blockading your view. His face looms over you as you try over and over to keep focus. Pain keeps blazing on your neck, intensifying each breath you take. Moving your heavy arm your fingers touch your neck, and you fight back cry. The pain of thousands of paper cuts pressing with each beat of your racing heart. Viscous liquid sticks to your hand. You turn your head at the sound of footsteps and scream at the burst of agony. The room blurs as a gossamer veil is pulled over your eyes, and your minds is dragged into the blissful darkness.
You feel the fire before you can even see. It engulfs the soft cloth of darkness surrounding you mind. Shreds of reality hit you. Agony is shooting form your neck. Indistinct voices surround you. The bright gate to Heaven shines above, then turns to gleaming ceiling lights. Your arms are leaden weights and your legs don't feel a part of you body. Panic rise, a kite on air, forcing you to sit up and join the physical existence. Fire struck from lightening rushes like a grass fire on your neck. Your scream of pain resounds through the room. Voices intensify and hands rush to restrain you. They are ghosts of color moving in front of your eyes as exhaustion makes you fall limp. Hands of balm massage your head and rub soothingly along your arms. A ghost appears in front of you and focuses into a friend. She gives you a soft kiss on the cheek that can't hide the cursory worry and relief you see before it goes to hide again. Roaming eyes let you see the surrounding circle of people centered on you like a pagan ritual in the act. The snip of scissors makes you turn your head and gasp at the fire flooding through your neck. The glimpse you get before the fog moves in is of a needle being threaded with surgical string. You fight against the swamping haze and the oppressing hands, knowing what comes next like and animal coming out from hibernation. A firecracker explodes where your neck should be. And before you can think to scream those black velvet hands smooth over your eyes and catch you as you fall into darkness.